Microsoft Reaffirms It Will Continue Support For Failing Windows Phone Platform

Windows phone users have no need to worry about being abandoned; Microsoft recently stated that it will continue to support the platform. This announcement was in response to Microsoft’s increasing focus on support for iOS and Android devices.

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore remarked at Build 2017, “We’re going to continue to support Windows phone. Windows is a platform that drives the experience on a whole range of devices. We live in a highly diverse world.”

At the moment, Microsoft only has a 0.3% share of the smartphone global market. This past financial quarter, Microsoft earned $5 million in revenue from phone hardware, while in the same quarter in 2015, they took in $1.4 billion. Microsoft has not released a new smartphone since February 2016.

What we've done with Surface is a good example. No-one before us had thought of 2-in-1s, and we created that category, and made it a successful category, to the point where there are more 2-in-1s coming, and that's what we want to do. So, in a sense, when you say “Will we make more phones?”, I'm sure we will make more phones, but they will not look like phones that are there today.

Some argue that Microsoft will introduce edge-to-edge displays, while others insist that the company is working on a foldable device. Some at Microsoft have hinted that the corporation is focused on developing devices like the HoloLens instead. Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman, a key developer of the HoloLens, recently remarked, “The phone is already dead. People just haven’t realized.”

Regardless of whatever Microsoft currently has in development, it is clear that they will not be completely abandoning the smartphone market any time soon. Windows Phone users can breathe a sigh of relief and know that their devices will continue, at least for the moment, to be supported.